Friday, February 28, 2014

A sneak peek at the five quilting projects that I hope to complete this spring.

I started cutting the batiks into half hexagons that will be used to make a modern grandmother flower garden quilt. Back in 2010, I made the Bali Hexagon quilt using half hexis and the grandmother flower garden pattern. I enjoyed making that quilt and have always wanted to make another. So, project number one is the batik grandmother flower garden quilt.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

TreadleOn (collectors of people-powered sewing machines that use their machines for sewing projects) was having a pincushion exchange. So, I decided to join the fun by making a chick as my exchange pincushion.

I received this pretty cathedral window pincushion from the host. She posted the rest of the exchange pincushions on her flickr blog. It was interesting to see how creative and clever others were with their pincushion designs.

Monday, February 17, 2014

While researching quilts, I came across Lorrie Cranor's blog post on her Tartan Tango: http://lorrie.cranor.org/blog/2013/05/24/tartan-tango/. I liked it so much that I wanted to make an Interleave quilt. Lucky for me, Lorrie had posted directions on how to make a mini Interleave quilt for her 1 day workshops: http://lorrie.cranor.org/blog/2014/01/19/how-to-make-an-interleave-quilt/. So, I got busy digging through fabrics to make one, which then turned into two mini quilts. The project can be assembled in a day. I'm not going to post directions. One can find them on Ms. Cranor's blog.

Test run #1: The Helix

This pattern is made with the helix template.
I started with pulling fabrics, printing directions, and making a template. I didn't change the scale of the template since I figured it would work for this mini project.

I made my own grid.

I followed the directions for marking and cutting the panels.

Then, I marked the left side with my soft graphite pencil so that I had my reference point, which is handy to have.

Since my Davis NVF doesn't have the perfect 1/4 inch walking foot, the strips no longer matched the grid. That didn't bother me.

Finished with first test run. My husband says it looks like two breast while my son says it looks like an hourglass.

Test Run #2: Hourglass

This pattern is made with the hourglass template.
I decided to use three different colors per strip instead of the two that are in the directions. So, I made a mistake on which piece I wanted cut. Trial and error on my part.

I wanted the orange panel to be sandwiched between the purples. I had to rip out the orange and add a new panel, and then re-cut on the purple.

I love treadling my Davis NVF!

Finished the Hourglass Sine Wave.

The two projects. An Interleave Mini Quilt would make a wonderful gift for a math or science teacher...or even that math geek.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

I finished the the Snow Day quilt block that I picked up from Quilt Vine:http://quiltvine.blogspot.com/2013/12/snow-day.html. This block will be added to other blocks to make a quilt with a snow theme.

Monday, February 3, 2014

A TreadleOn friend had given me four large boxes of used jeans that she never got around to using. Since I have made numerous denim quilts with that stash, I decided to thank her with a denim quilt. I had picked out the cute bandana fabric some time ago thinking that it would look great as a backing fabric for a denim quilt. The solid reds are the strip fabrics used between denim squares, and the red with pattern fabric is the binding fabric.

This quilt was made using what I'm now calling the Mondrian Denim pattern. I just quilted this one different from the others that I have made.

After all the pieces were arranged and stitched into sections easy enough to handle in quilting, I pinned the back fabric on and then used tape to mark my lines. There is no batting in this quilt.

I like using this tape method, but it was a bit tricky when lining up the lines with the next section to quilt. I left all of the tape on the first section to line up the lines on the next section.

I left a gap of a half-inch (green section of the cutting mat) for the space of red strip and used the ruler to line up the lines. My quilt lines are close to a 1/4 inch from the tape.

Then I slowly transferred the tape and quilted. I did this for all of the sections.

I thought this method would save me some time, but in the end I don't think it was any faster than when I quilted inside each square like I did on the last Mondrian quilt that I made.

This will be my last denim quilt project for awhile since it's time to try other designs and projects that are on my ever growing to do list.

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Welcome to my blog

Hello!I'm a mom that loves to quilt, garden, collect vintage sewing machines, and travel the world. Besides my love of quilting, I enjoy collecting vintage sewing machines and treadling. All of my machines that I use for quilting are in treadles! I also enjoy evenings reading other quilters blogs when not quilting or virtually touring the world. I thank many wonderful quilters for sharing their techniques, favorite fabrics, tutorials, and finished quilts. From their wealth of information, I have learned so much and enjoy learning more. -Monica